Barbara, give me guaza!

Well I'm safely back from my trip to Asmara and the dentist. I was worried that my front chipped tooth would either end up with a big black filling or worse yet, break into a thousand pieces. Various VSO volunteers had told me horror stories of broken teeth or unneeded and painful root canals, so I was faily anxious waiting for my appointment. But all went well (aside from a three hour wait in the dentist office). My dentist was an Indian woman who's staying for two years in Asmara, and she seemed very competent. I ended up having to stay a few days as I needed to see her twice, so I had time to wander around the city, sip cappuccinos, have some good food, and visit with some other VSOs.

I arrived back in Keren to learn that we may not have school for a few weeks. It looks like the middle school teachers are all off to SAWA, (the military training camp where youth are sent for mandatory services after they finish school). I'm not sure what the teachers will do there, but if they go there will be no school until they get back. One of the VSO volunteers I met with in Asmara has left her village indefinitely because most of her students were in SAWA, supposedly just for the semester break, but they haven't come back yet. Kim and I have lots of cassettes to prepare for the language laboratory, and we'll also use the time to work on Arabic and Tigrinha, so I'm sure we won't be bored.

I thought I'd update you on the guaza story. Remember the kids who tormented us by banging on our gate and yelling for guaza, the horrid little fruit that grow on a tree in our yard? Well, we finally decided to let them in at 4 every afternoon on the condition that they don't knock and yell and throw rocks before that time. The huge mob is now down to a small group of nice little boys. Aside from collecting guazas, they like kicking the soccer ball around and have learned to throw the frisbee ( a new sport for them). It often ends up in the guaza tree stuck on thorns and has to be knocked down with rocks, so it is now patched in several places with duct tape. The reasons things are going fairly smoothly now, I believe, is that the children have seen what lengths I will go to when things don't go well. There is one particularly obnoxious little fellow, about 4 years old, very cute, but with a glint in his eye that lets you know that he knows exactly how to get on our nerves. He likes to knock and knock at the gate at all hours and when you open it to see who's there, he puts down his head and tries to charge his way into the compound. Well, I'd finally had it with him, so one day, after several warnings, I picked him up, and with the help of other children, carried him to his home, kicking and screaming. I plopped him down on the floor and with very poor Tigrinha explained the situtation to his mom and let her know that he wasn't welcome for a few days. I must have looked like quite the fool to her, but I think it did the trick! He's calmed down a lot since then.

We now have five bicycles! We've inherited some from some other volunteers and VSO has also helped us out. This means we can go on some rides together as a family, which will be nice. Our first outing planned is to visit our friend Morven. She is moving from Keren to a small village about 20 km away, so we should be able to make it there and back fairly easily. We're motivating the children with a stop at the Serena hotel on the way back. The Serena is the fancy hotel on the outskirts of town. It has an outdoor terrace with beautiful views and offers fish, pasta and pizza. We've been promising Maya a dinner there since her birthday but with petrol shortages, the mini buses haven't been running there in a while. It should make a nice outing. Since we'll have a least one weekend off with the kids we'd like to take advantage of our time together.

Speaking of restaurants, I don't think I mentioned "Chez Lulu". Lukas must have been motivated by some meals out during our holidays, because when we first returned, he drew up a fancy menu and started cooking and serving us meals! Typical to Eritrean restaurants, most of the items on the menu weren't available, but we did get some fries, shiro (spicy chick pea sauce), stuffed chili peppers, and salad out of the deal. Chez Lulu seems to have shut down, but Maya and Lukas still cook for us from time to time, which is really nice. Now if we could only get them to do the laundry....

Well it's time to go do some shopping and go for a juice and cake with Kim before we head home.

Take care,

Barb